Geocaching

Our family has discovered geocaching. We're fashionably late to the game, which is at least six years old. C gave me a handheld GPS receiver for Christmas, after experience geocaching with her hiking group. Short version: folks around the world hide items in weather-proof containers (the "caches"), publish their latitude/longitude coordinates on the internet, and others seek to find them. A logbook is often included in the cache where finders can note their success. The caches can also include trinkets/gifts/souvenirs for the finders - traditionally you bring something to leave in the cache if you remove an item.

This weekend we had our second family excursion. We found one cache after a 10 minute stroll...


...and were eager for more. So I logged into the geocaching.com website with my cellphone, found another nearby cache, and we headed for it.


Instead of loading the coordinates into the GPS unit and letting it tell us the compass heading and distance to our next target, we set out knowing only the target coordinates - we used the raw readings on the device to decide what direction to walk. We could use some practice at this, as we took a very circular route!


But after a scramble to the top of a local peak, we found the second cache, a little waterlogged. The paper logbook was inside a ziploc bag and dry. We left a note on the geocaching site so the next seeker will bring a new outer container.

We had lovely views on the way back home.

Now we're planning to hide our own cache somewhere, preferably in a spot that requires a nice walk into the site (not drive-up). And we'll see if we can get the extended family interested in geocaching!